Nature Cure eBook

Undoubtedly, the invigorating and stimulating influence
of cold sprays, ablutions, sitz baths, barefoot walking
in the dewy grass or on wet stones and all other cold-water
applications depends largely upon their electromagnetic
effects upon the system. This has been explained
in Chapter Ten, “Natural Treatment of Acute Diseases.”

(2) Elimination of Impurities. As the cold water
drives the blood with increased force through the
system, it flushes the capillaries in the tissues
and cleanses them from the accumulations of morbid
matter and poisons which are one of the primary causes
of acute and chronic diseases.

As the blood rushes back to the surface it suffuses
the skin, opens and relaxes the pores and the minute
blood vessels or capillaries and thus unloads its
impurities through the skin.

Why We Favor Cold Water

In the treatment of chronic diseases some advocates
of natural methods of healing still favor warm or
hot applications in the form of hot-water baths, different
kinds of steam or sweat baths, electric light baths,
hot compresses, fomentations, etc.

However, the great majority of Nature Cure practitioners
in Germany have abandoned hot applications of any
kind almost entirely because of their weakening and
enervating aftereffects and because in many instances
they have not only failed to produce the expected results,
but aggravated the disease conditions.

We can explain the different effects of hot and cold
water as well as of all other therapeutic agents upon
the system by the Law of Action and Reaction.
Applied to physics, this law reads: “Action
and reaction are equal but opposite.” I
have adapted the Law of Action and Reaction to therapeutics
in a somewhat circumscribed way as follows: “Every
therapeutic agent affecting the human organism has
a primary, temporary, and a secondary, permanent effect.
The secondary, lasting effect is contrary to the primary,
transient effect.”

The first, temporary effect of warmth above the body
temperature, whether it be applied in the form of
hot air or water, steam or light, is to draw the blood
into the surface. Immediately after such an application
the skin will be red and hot.

The secondary and lasting effect, however (in accordance
with the Law of Action and Reaction), is that the
blood recedes into the interior of the body and leaves
the skin in a bloodless and enervated condition subject
to chills and predisposed to “catching cold.”

On the other hand, the first, transient effect of
cold-water applications upon the body as a whole or
any particular part is to chill the surface and send
the blood scurrying inward, leaving the skin in a
chilled, bloodless condition. This lack of blood
and sensation of cold are at once telegraphed over
the afferent nerves to headquarters in the brain,
and from there the command goes forth to the nerve
centers regulating the circulation: “Send
blood into the surface!”